Chick-Phil-A

Play Ball!! Phillies vs. Astros, Season Opener 4/1/11 @ Citizens Bank Park

It seems like forever ago that Spring Training started.  Everyone was optimistic.  We had the very best pitching staff.  We had everyone healthy and ready to go.  We were already talking about who we were going to face in the World Series.

Then Chase was "sore", Brad was "sore".  Polly's elbow was still a bit tweaked up. And the doomsday pessimism followed.  All of the sudden, the Phillies were NOT the team to beat.  They were old, hurt, and had an offense that was anemic.  All of the sudden, we were the underdogs.

I was just ready for the real season to start.

Date, Time: April 1, 2011, 1:05 PM

Venue: Citizens Bank Park

Opponent: The Houston Astros

Pitching Matchup:  Roy Halladay vs. Brett Myers

Pregame: Met up with some fine twitter folk in Lot K for a breakfast tailgate after it stopped snowing.  Oh and apparently this:

  
Seats: Section 144

Food/Drink: amazingly bought NOTHING in the stadium today

Thumbs Up:Helllllo WALKOFF!!!!! The return of Lady Pha Pha. The general fact that baseball games that count were being played again.

Thumbs Down:Brett Myers making the Phillies offense look a bit silly.  Wearing almost as many layers to a baseball game as I would to go snowboarding.

Thumbs Indifferent: Maybe it's time we figure out a new "Opening Day" routine....the walking in from 10th street and trying not to fall down some steps coming out the outfield was awesome the first time I saw it, but I'm ready for something new...

 Photographic Evidence:

 
 
 And as always - check out the rest on myFlickr feed.

He Was Born This Way (in the Galapagos Islands) - Lady Pha Pha returns

Last year at the Phillies home opener we were entertained by a different version of the Phillie Phanatic - Lady Pha Pha - who looked like a slightly larger, greener Lady Ga Ga in the red lace outfit from her Bad Romance video.

 Lady Pha Pha's 1st performance  in 2010

 
This year, Lady Pha Pha returned - with a whole new gig.  This time as Ga Ga at the Grammy's - being carried in a giant egg and all - and performed to Born This Way.  Pretty funny.  Here are some snapshots of the performance.

 Gaga in her egg at the Grammys

  Lady Pha Pha being carried in, pre-hatch.

 

   Hunter Pence is enjoying the performance while he trys to get ready for his at bat.

Opening Day Arts and Crafts - A Chooch to answer all your questions.

Since seeing the commercial for MLB 2K11 with Roy Halladay talking to a Carlos Ruiz pillow I have wanted a Chooch pillow of my own to guide  me in my daily decisions.  I did some brainstorming to try and figure out how to make one.

Finally, this week, I had some time to gather supplies and actually attempt this project.  I thought it would be fitting for an Opening Day arts and crafts project.

I gathered all the supplies I would need - a white twin sheet from IKEA, Iron On transfer inkjet printing paper, pollyfill, and a few photos of players I had taken in the last year or so.

The paper only comes commercially in regular letter size, so I decided to start small and see how it would turn out.

I used Photoshop Elements to extract individual players from photos to use as the graphic for the mini pillows.  I then flipped the image and printed it onto the transfer paper.

 Supplies gathered!

I cut out each player shape, ironed it onto the sheet, cut it out with a matching back and sewed around the edges.

 Roy's all sewn up.

Not much left to do but stuff with pollyfill and hand stitch the opening where I stuffed the mini pillow.

 Shane's stuffed!

And here are the finished products:

 

 

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Our cat, Rhett, became very curious about these new mini people...

 It was pretty easy to do.  Now I am going to keep a better eye on my camera subjects to make sure I get some good "pillow worthy" shots and make a few more.  I think it would be fun to have a mini plush 25 man roster.  Or take mini Chooch around and take photos of him visiting places, like the Travelocity gnome (ha ha).

 Chooch says: "Keep running"!  He's like a mini motivational figure on my treadmill.

Anyway - time to get a move on and get to the game.  See all you crazy kids in Lot K around 10 am!!

Playing Catch Up - Phillies 2010 Home Opener photos

Hard to believe this was already over a week ago!!  What a beautiful day for baseball at Citizen's Bank Park it was last Monday, April12 for the Phillies home opener.  I was kind of surprised at how few people were actually in their seats for the pre-game ceremony, but the place filled up and got rocking when the actual game started.

Mr. ChickPhilA couldn't make it to the game with me today, so it was the 1st game of the season that my Mom came with me instead.  I left work around noon and headed over to check out all the pre-game festivities.  I don't understand the appeal of Mr. Greengenes, but I do like free Turkey Hill ice cream.  And I did run into someone wearing an I Want to Go to the Zoo With Roy Halladay shirt, so that was cool.

This guy, he LOVES bad renditions of Muse songs by cover bands while drinking beer outside of a Phillies game.

SOOOOOO CUTTERED!!

Oh, you have an SUV?  Can you open the back? Then you can join our tailgate club.

The Phillies come through the crowd in the outfield.

More photos after the jump!